Old

from 1991 written by some blokes called Dray and Sherman

A Forest of Tears

A FOREST OF TEARS - a new song - extract from an email from Paul Jarvis to me

I went to the Belsen concentration camp site in 1984 . 'The Animals' was inspired by the horrors of the death camps , but I recently came up with a churning , simple guitar piece which reminded me of being in an oppressive forest for some reason . Then I realised I wanted to write something simpler than 'The Animals' Expressionistic cut-ups about what going to Belsen is like . Reading up about Belsen , it wasn't like Auswitch or Dachau , where Jews were gassed and their bodies burnt pretty quickly ... apparently Belsen was worse because people suffered for much longer . Towards the end of the war , thousands were sent on unimaginable death marches from Dachau and Auswitch to Belsen , as the Allies closed in from the East . The camp commander , faced with an outbreak of typhoid , decided the only way to stop the spread of the disease by infected faeces was " if they don't eat , they won't shit " ... when the Allies reached the camp in 1945 some 75,000 had died , and many were unburied - hence those famous images of skeletal bodies piled high .

Visiting the camp today is a weird experience . It's set in a manicured park ( "don't be surprised if the trees are kept neat" ) , with a Holocaust museum where you can buy postcards ( " oh , there's money in the dying ... " ) . What I'll never forget were all the visitors breaking down ... most were German , consumed with obvious guilt for their fathers as they looked at the photos . As a place of rest for the victims , it works - but with the enormity of what happened there , I wanted chaos , I wanted to be put up against a wall and be screamed into my face "IT MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN" , I wanted to see real blood , dead bodies ... I WANTED TO SEE FOR MYSELF ... And I wanted to feel disgust like I'd never want to feel again - which you don't really get from looking at the photos of the dead . They just don't seem real , and it's easy to kid yourself that it was another place and time - we , now , could never do such a thing ! Oh yes we could - in a heartbeat ... It's really difficult to say without sounding mad , but it really felt like the beautifully sculpted forest was actually trying to hide what really happened there , rather than TRULY representing what happened there ... I think you have to embrace the madness rather than run away from it .

New Material

Thinking of posting some of the new material, as I am getting bored of the old stuff. Its pretty dark, in fact thinking of releasing some of it maybe not as Slab at all and on a different label altogether. Anyway time to go, regards to all. Will get on it.

Vij

Much loved by the Jigoku guys, a fantastic Russian movie from 1967

Very limited edition T shirt

Ok....lets see if anyone is reading this....

I have available some very limited edition Slab t shirts, designed by Stephen O'Malley no less and made personally by a friend of his.

The only people in the known universe with one of these are myself, Paul Jarvis, Stephen O'Malley and James Plotkin.

The t shirts are black with a logo based on the Slab logo used on our first single Mars On Ice.

If you want one email me.... my address is on the Slab website.

First come first served.

PLEASE NOTE THESE ARE FREE, ITS NOT AN AUCTION...... I stun myself with my own generosity heh heh.... or rather, the generosity of SOMA

10th April UPDATE>>>> SORRY ALL GONE, if you want one I may get some more done, will have to see.

JIGOKU

Sometime back in the mists of time a while after SLAB

I became involved in a little project with my friend Jon

and Gareth Goddard from Cherrystones

it usually involved copious amounts of substance abuse

and lots of audiovisual noise.

Jigoku was the probably the first of the underground audiovisual mashups in London

starting in the very early 90s....

usually playing the most drugged out and darkest of clubs.

The films were seriously nasty and pyschedelic....

Jon and Gareth are releasing a DVD

check it out

SLAB Leviathan

Leviathan

An ode to the Sea.... touched up since first recorded in 1989..... the final version is huge.... a return to our heavier side.....

http://rapidshare.com/files/370078528/SLAB_Leviathan_excerpt_.wav